Communities in rural Papua New Guinea install their own cost effective and energy efficient solar panels. GGGI says that governments should rather invest in renewable energy. Credit: Catherine Wilson/IPS

By Yazeed Kamaldien
CAPE TOWN, South Africa, Jan 11 2019 (IPS)

While growth in the green economy looks promising, government regulation and a business-as-usual approach are among the hurdles inhibiting cleaner energy production.

Dr. Frank Rijsberman, director-general of the Global Green Growth Institute (GGGI), believes shifts are needed to realise more projects. And he believes funding is available.

“We have teams in more than 30 countries. We work on policy barriers and help develop bankable projects. In the last two years we have helped our member countries mobilise at least one billion dollars in green and climate finance,” Rijsberman told IPS. GGGI is a treaty-based international organisation that assists countries develop a green growth model.

Rijsberman was among panelists discussing ‘Unlocking Finance for Sustainability’ at the Partnership for Action on Green Economy (PAGE) Ministerial Conference being held in Cape Town, South Africa from Jan. 10 to 11. It gathered government leaders, businesses and environmentalists to focus on the challenge to “reduce inequalities, protect the environment and grow the economy”.

The conference focused on the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, adopted three years ago.

“It is time now to take these global goals and turn them into real changes in the lives of people and nations. It’s time for action,” stated the conference agenda.

“We can restructure our economic and financial systems to transform them into drivers of sustainability and social inclusion; the two prerequisites for achieving the Sustainable Development Goals and targets of the Paris Agreement on climate change,” it continued.

At the December United Nations’ Climate Conference in Katowice, Poland, where ministers from around the world negotiated on how best to implement the 2015 Paris Agreement, which outlines commitments to mitigate climate change, accessing finance was a topical issue. IPS reported from the 24th Conference Of The Parties (COP24) that the African team of negotiators had been concerned about who would carry the burden of financing the implementation of the Paris Agreement.

PAGE gathered around 500 innovators and leaders from governments, civil society, private sector, development organisations, media and the general public. The idea was to showcase “the experiences and creativity of first-movers…and engage in an open debate about what it is going to take to for us to have a ‘just transition’ to economics and societies that are more inclusive, stable and sustainable.”

Rijsberman offered his insights gained from working in different countries on accessing financing for green projects.

Excerpts of the interview follow:

Dr. Frank Rijsberman, director-general of the Global Green Growth Institute (GGGI), says the largest amounts of money available is with the private sector and institutional development such as pension funds. This, he says, can be accessed for climate change mitigation. Credit: Yazeed Kamaldien/IPS

Inter Press Service (IPS): Where is this money that you mention for green projects?

Frank Rijsberman (FR): There’s a lot more finance available than people think. There tends to be an over focus on development money but the largest amounts of money is with the private sector and institutional development such as pension funds. We need to get the private sector off the sidelines and to invest in renewable energy.

IPS: And how can that be done?

FR: They need to realise that green investments are attractive. If you want to do socially important projects then renewable energy is it. It has become the cheapest, most attractive form of energy.

IPS: What about the role that governments play in this? They are the regulators that sometimes inhibit the private sector.

FR: Sometimes we sit in the room with the private sector and ask them what stops them from investing and they say it’s regulation and policies. We have to find a more welcoming environment.

We talk to governments and they talk about a study they did three years ago and tell us renewable energy is expensive. But we tell them prices have come down. All that governments know is how to build fossil fuel power plants. Fossil fuel project developers are still in their contact lists. The banks know what to do. They need to look at an energy mix.

The Hopefield wind farm in the Western Cape, located 125km north of central Cape Town on the R45 highway, generates approximately 176 600 MWh of clean renewable energy every year. Its 37 wind turbines generate enough electricity to power about 70,000 low-income homes, or 29,000 medium-income homes. Construction on the project began in late 2012. Umoya Energy, a project supported by the South African department of energy, runs the wind farm. Credit: Yazeed Kamaldien/IPS

IPS: So what is it about government policies that hinder moves to renewable energy?

FR: Some governments have laws that they use to disconnect companies from power if they put solar on their rooftops. Other countries, like Finland, still have old polices that are bad and that are still on the books. It is also difficult politically when the government subsidises fuel and not renewable energy. Governments need to remove policy barriers.

We are in the middle of such a rapid transition but if you sit in a country where governments don’t see that it’s difficult.

Coal and oil is more certain [to produce power] but for countries that need to import that, where prices are uncertain, it’s a lot more certain to use the sun and wind if you have this in your country.

IPS: How is the prospect for renewable energy looking in the developing world?

FR: If you are using only coal-fired power plants then you will sit with a stranded asset. Countries that already have a lot of investment in fossil fuels will find the change to renewable energy painful.

In Africa, most countries don’t have this. In some countries only 20 percent of people have energy access. These countries can invest in green energy and they can avoid making bad investments and can leapfrog into renewables.

They don’t have to look like Asia where they have rapidly developed economies and sit with coal-fired power stations that pollute their cities.

There is a real opportunity to avoid the problems that other countries have.

IPS: What about developing country examples of renewable energy that worked?

FR: Just two years ago when the Indian government wanted to a build a power plant they found the prices of large-scale solar panels less than coal-fired power plants. They scrapped all their plans. They are looking at solar power projects.

But there is still a lot of inertia. People are still continuing to invest in fossil fuels. We are trying to show governments through information and projects that this is feasible. We want to show how it can reduce risk.

We are working on projects. In Fiji the government gives a subsidy to low-income houses for electricity. We have proposed a project where the government puts solar panels on the roof and uses the same subsidy to finance this. It’s about using that money for sustainability.

Low-income houses have TVs and mobile phones. Making a package for people that puts solar on their roof is better. They can charge their mobile phones and [solar] also connects to their fridge and TV. Social movements have done this in some countries.

Excerpt:

Civil society representatives attending the board meeting of the Green Climate Fund (GCF) in Songdo, South Korea expressed strong disappointment Thursday with the board’s decision to accredit Deutsche Bank – one of the world’s largest financiers of coal – to receive and distribute GCF funds.

The Fund is the United Nations’ premier mechanism for funding climate change-related mitigation and adaptation in developing countries.

At the Copenhagen climate summit in 2009, donors agreed to mobilise 100 billion dollars a year by 2020, in an undefined mix of public and private funding, to help developing countries. The GCF is to be a cornerstone of this mobilisation, using the money to fund an even split between mitigation and adaptation projects.

But representatives of development, environment and social justice organisations say that while they support the Fund in principle, “it needs to change direction away from accrediting controversial big banks that are heavily invested in fossil fuels and thus actually exacerbating climate change.”

They say the Board chose to approve all 13 applicants presented for accreditation at the current GCF meeting in a single bloc, accrediting groups of entities in one go. Besides Deutsche Bank, they included the World Bank, whose record is also controversial for its “top-down, donor-driven nature.”

“This encouraged political horse-trading between Board members over which applicants get approved, leading to tit-for-tat approval of applicants despite very serious reservations,” the groups said in a statement Thursday.

They include ActionAid International, Third World Network, Women’s Environment and Development Organization (WEDO), Friends of the Earth, and a host of other development policy and grassroots organisations.

“[Deutsche Bank] has been criticized for its very poor record on human rights monitoring, was awarded the ‘Black Planet Award’ for environmentally destructive business policies, and recently received a record fine for market manipulation and obstructing regulators,” the statement says.

“The GCF claims zero tolerance towards money-laundering, but has accredited Deutsche Bank despite the fact that two national regulators have this year fined it for the poor state of its anti-money-laundering governance.”

Lidy Nacpil, coordinator of the Asian Peoples Movement on Debt and Development (APMDD), one of the representatives at the GCF board meeting, said, “Neither Deutsche Bank nor the World Bank can hold up to the highest fiduciary and financial accountability standards, as well as enforce social-economic and environmental safeguards.

“In addition, they continue to be among the biggest bankrollers of dirty energy, as well as false solutions such as palm oil and agrofuels. And despite their public commitment to the transition to renewables and clean energy, they show no signs of slowing down,” she added in a statement.

The 11 other entities accredited by the GCF board are Namibia’s Environmental Investment Fund, Rwanda’s Ministry of Natural Resources, India’s National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development, Corporación Andina de Fomento (Development Bank of Latin America), Caribbean Community Climate Change Center, Africa Finance Corporation, Agence Française de Développement, Conservation International, European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, Inter-American Development Bank and United Nations Environment Programme.

They and the seven previously-accredited institutions are allowed to access GCF funds, and in turn disburse them to other groups who will be implementing projects and programs in developing countries.

“Unfortunately, with this decision [to accredit Deutsche Bank and the World Bank], the Green Climate Fund is proving to be more ‘business as usual’ rather than ‘transformational,’” Nacpil said.

Athena Ballesteros, director of the World Resources Institute’s Finance Center, who is attending the meetings, said the group welcomed the inclusion of many of these national entities.

“The future of effectiveness of climate financing rests on empowered national institutions which will be the main engine of countries’ implementation of climate action plans,” she said.

“Today’s decision demonstrates that developing country institutions, even relatively small ones, can meet international standards of best practice in financial and project management and environmental and social protections.”

Edited by Kanya D’Almeida

Agnes Katete lights a fire in a make-shift camp. Behind her are the tents that she and those affected by the March flood in Malawi’s Kilipula Village now live in. Credit: Mabvuto Banda/IPS

By Mabvuto Banda
LILONGWE, Dec 12 2013 (IPS)

Delays in finalising Malawi’s climate change policy, which has been in the making for the last three years, are affecting millions of families living in disaster-prone areas across this southern African nation, says the country’s minister of environment and climate change management Halima Daudi.

Daudi, who led the Malawian delegation to COP19 in Warsaw last month, tells IPS that the delay in drafting and making the policy operational comes at a cost to many of Malawi’s vulnerable.

“For example there is the GCF [Green Climate Finance] which needs us to come up with a governing instrument by establishing an authority designated to be the focal point to handle the funds and we cannot access that without a national policy on climate change,” she says.

For the last three years, the Malawian government, with the help of United Nations agencies, has been working on the National Climate Change Policy, a National Climate Change Investment Plan and a National Adaptation Plan to address medium- to long-term adaptation needs for Malawi.

William Chadza, executive director for the Centre for Environmental Policy and Advocacy, a local civil society grouping, explains that “as a country we cannot access financing for adaptation without a well-articulated national climate policy and a national adaptation plan which needs to establish a body to specifically handle climate funds.”

Daudi agrees. “It’s very difficult for us to access such funds for adaptation and mitigation, which in the end increases the vulnerability of so many families to [the impact of] climate change,” she says.

But she explained the delays were “due to [a lack of] funding for holding consultative meetings, and mainly because we don’t want to rush this. It’s a very important policy that will define our resolve against climate change. We are taking time on it.”

But Dora Marema, coordinator for GenderCC, a network of women and gender activists working for gender and climate justice, says that the delays in implementing the national climate policies in several African countries, including Malawi, is affecting hundreds of thousands of people reeling from the effects of climate change.

“It’s true that most countries are failing to access funds for adaptation because their policies are not in place and the impact is on the most vulnerable, especially women trying to recover from disasters associated with climate change,” Marema tells IPS.

And the longer it takes to implement Malawi’s climate change policy, the longer it will be before Agnes Katete and her family get back on their feet.

In March, a mountain of water came gushing through the only door in Katete’s dingy shack in the wee hours of the morning. The water swept away her house and 10 others in Kilipula Village in the lakeshore district of Karonga, which lies 600 km from the capital Lilongwe.

Katete, a mother of four, was lucky. She managed to escape unhurt with her children.

But like many others in her village, she lost her rice fields. And now, nine months after they lost everything; they are still unable to pull through.

Katete and many others from her village are still living in make shift homes set up by government and U.N. agencies, surviving on food handouts.

“I don’t know what’s going to happen to me and my children because another rainy season has started and I still don’t have a house. I lost all my income and I have no food,” she tells IPS.

Over the last five years, persistent droughts, flash floods and erratic rainfall show how vulnerable the country has become. This year alone, according to the department for disaster affairs, floods have affected close to 12,877 households and wiped out entire crop fields mainly in the northern and southern parts of the country.

In March 2012, flooding caused by two weeks of torrential rains destroyed thousands of homes in eight districts, leaving an estimated 300,000 people destitute, eight people dead and several missing.

The largest impact of climate change could be on Malawi’s agriculture sector, which is heavily dependent on rain-fed cultivation. The country has three million hectares of arable land.

Evans Njewa, an environmental policy and planning officer, tells IPS that one of the adaptation methods that Malawi plans to promote and create awareness on is traditional soil conservation. He explains that conservation agriculture, which involves reduced tillage, permanent soil cover and crop rotation, can help adapt to climate change effects because it potentially increases productivity through better soils and helps farmers adapt to climate change through better water retention.

“Like many other African countries, we are looking at adaptation as a priority in the National Climate Policy,” Njewa says, because as “a less industrialised country” it is easier “to [be able to] concentrate on mitigation.”